Chapter 1742: Alchemy Flourishes (2)
RUMBLE!
A thunderous explosion shook the void, stirring mana and propelling waves of force.
Beneath the Original Dawn Palace was the Utmost Purity Hall's palatial building situated upon a free-floating continent. On this continent, the inhabitants were all outside or near windows, staring at the sky as their eyes were fixated on the palace above. Their expressions ranged from disbelief, uncertainty, fear, shock, interest, amazement, awe, desire, and anticipation. Some sat alone, with their Dao Companions, or together in wide circles. Others maintained hand-seals while circulating their cultivation base silently, and a few had strange tools that seemed to be designed to store energy and essence.
This wasn't the first time the Original Dawn Palace above their heads rumbled with a mighty thunderous roar, keeping them awake and shaking their spirits. At first, they were terrified. Who wouldn't after such a monstrous uproar caused by a foreigner? But then that fear quickly gave way to other emotions, one of which was none other than greed!
That was because of the subsequent event that would occur after the explosion, which was a leakage of Utmost Purity Mist intermixed with extraordinarily refined Solar Essence! The Utmost Purity Mist was extremely pure, absurdly so!
In the Utmost Purity Galaxy, Utmost Purity Mist had distinctions of grade and quality, often serving as a differentiation for their uses as well. This displayed the depth of their Alchemic Dao.
As such, Utmost Purity Mist formed through the consecutive concoction of qualified ninth-grade Mortal-Rank products was considered as Grade One Mist, the lowest. By either accumulation and compression or by concocting products, the latter of which had requirements of 777 low-tier, 77 high-tier, or 7 peak-tier products, then Grade Two Mist was created.
Grade One Mist was largely superficial and was more of a status than practical in usage. Grade Two Mist was far more practical, capable of being utilized with various Arts, Spells, and Methods and Wei Wuyin had devised the Eighth Source Transcendent Spell using Grade Two Mist as its basis.
Grade Three Mist required similar requirements but on the scale of Mystic-Earth grade or 7,777 transcendent-quality ninth-grade products. At this point, Alchemic Runes could be refined and various abilities of the Alchemic Stars can be executed to their peak effect, such as replicating the Alchemical Manifestations of the Alchemic Dao, such as the World Awakening of a True Saint.
What was genuinely fascinating and enough to invoke pure desire about Utmost Purity Mist was the largely spread method across the galaxy that allowed standard cultivators to refine Utmost Purity Mist to expel impurities, digest Alchemical Spirit Remnants, and assist in the ease of refining alchemical products and generic cultivation materials.
Meanwhile, by using Utmost Purity Mist, the standard method of cultivating external alchemical energies to refine products can be elevated depending on the grade of the mist. In actuality, even in the Utmost Purity Galaxy, the majority of Alchemists didn't pursue Alchemic Heart of Qi either due to the lack of innate talent or the unwillingness to exhaust their combat potential and future lifespan for a chance at breaking the mold and becoming extraordinary.
However, products had stringent requirements, and the vast majority of cultivated alchemical energy was diluted in effectiveness and essence due to the process. For example, it was notoriously known that the Alchemic Spirit Cultivation Path allowed a cultivator's alchemical energies to be an entire realm above those who did not do so. This was an inferior thinking process, and it was easier to understand that the Alchemic Spirit generates the appropriate grade of energy while those who use external methods to produce alchemical energies were naturally inferior.
The King of Everlore had concocted the ninth-grade product, the Everlore Ascension Pill, as a Qi Condensation Realm cultivator. This was logically sound, and appropriate, although exceedingly unreasonable in terms of talent and expected ability, in the Utmost Purity Galaxy.
This was because Astral Core Realm alchemists like Tuo Bihan can concoct seventh, eighth, and ninth-grade products with inferior alchemical energies and lacking an Alchemic Spirit!
The solution to this was solved through Utmost Purity Mist and an ingenious alchemist long, long, long ago. By using Utmost Purity Mist to refine one's externally cultivated alchemical energies, cultivators can artificially elevate their grade of energy, enhancing the range of products they can conceive and emulate pure alchemists, while simultaneously maintaining their combat strength.
Grade One Mist equated to an Astral Core Realm Alchemist's Alchemical Force; Grade Two Mist equated to the lower-stage of the Mystic Ascendant Realm—Mystic Star, Soul of Mysticism, Demi-Mortal Lord, and Earthly Saint Phases; Grade Two Mist rivaled the upper-stages of the Mystic Ascendant Realm—Worldly Saint, Heavenly Saint, Ascended Saint, and True Sage. Furthermore, they can benefit greatly by being exposed to, cultivating, and concocting Utmost Purity Mist of any grade.
Lastly, while not the final method, one of the most important reasons: Utmost Purity Mist can be considered as the non-existent to the world yet natural form of Alchemical Essence, and they can directly assist in the cultivation path of Alchemic Spirit cultivators!!
Unfortunately, this caused Utmost Purity Mist, an already rare substance, to become exceedingly valuable to most cultivators and Alchemists, and therefore a ridiculously expensive material that was in absurd demand yet the lowest supply. After all, those who can create it can also use it!
The grade of Utmost Purity Mist that was leaking from the Original Dawn Palace's protective saber formation was grade two! It was flooding downwards like a mystical immortal mist cascading like a waterfall, but it lingered within the saber formation's boundary, only pushed explosively down by these repeated explosions.
A blessed opportunity!
Why exactly?
It began seven days ago.
Wei Wuyin had resolved himself to attempt an unprecedented leap in his Dao of Alchemy! He was determined to test out of theory and create a Transcendent Mystic-Rank Product!
Firstly, he used a Vortex-Zone with a 'one day to one month' ratio, intending to spend the next twenty-four days, essentially two whole years, trying to succeed! Then, he started to concoct after gathering his notes and thoughts on the possibility. All that was left was to experiment through concoction!
And that's where the problem lies!
Wei Wuyin spent the next three months within the Vortex-Zone's temporal acceleration bubble with Bai Xiu. He was driven and focused, and he exerted the fullest extent of his cultivation base concocting using the Thirty-Three Heavenly Concoction Method to warm up after living those eighteen lives. He had an extraordinary amount of materials to play with, capable of concocting various products from the lineages he possessed and his own.
This included products like the Chasm of White Pill, a Mystic-World grade product, which was enough to sprout the deepest of greenest of greedy lights within Violet Sea, Grey Rose, Crimson Blade, and Fairy Silence's eyes! They were like ravenous wolves, starving, and hungry for meat. He could still recall their looks.
While the Chasm of White Pill was an Abyssal Race's exclusive product, he didn't mind making a few.
If the world knew that Wei Wuyin was using Mystic-World grade products, concocting them 33 times in a single go as a mere 'warm-up', countless alchemists might have heart attacks and enter the cycle of samsara willingly.
Meanwhile, this was nothing to Wei Wuyin; since his breakthrough into the first stage of the Mystic Ascendant Realm, the quality of his energies had entered an entirely new realm. As a defier of common convention, becoming the first ever Mortal Saint Alchemist, Wei Wuyin's cultivation vastly exceeded typical standards. This was the accumulation of every advantage he had worked incredibly hard for and risked his life.
The rumbling from outside was the result of Bai Xiu's indignation and reluctance. She was continuously expelling grade four Utmost Purity Mist, trying to store it outside and slurp it up slowly without Wei Wuyin noticing. And he truly didn't notice.
Unfortunately, every time she took a 'dump' outside, the formation outside would become semi-permeable, expelling grade two mist after being shockingly diluted.
By the third month, word had gotten around of this event, and the fortune that was being bestowed to these fortune alchemists!
But of course, how could this be settled with just that? When word spread, the entire Swirling Growth Stellar Region was alerted! Hao Chengxue was informed and was making haste to return!
However, it was just the beginning!
Within the Alchemical Chambers, two voices erupted with excitement!
"I have an idea!" Wei Wuyin exclaimed.
"I know why we keep failing!" Wei Wuyin's Second Mind exclaimed.
In truth, they were both failing, and they were both working their damndest to find a solution!
"Oh?" Wei Wuyin hurriedly calmed the swirling grade four mist, a display of his Alchemic Stars of Transcendent Purity's strength. "Do you think it's me?"
The Second Mind was a mental incarnation that was reflected within Wei Wuyin's right eye's pupil, a literal front-row seat to the concoction, and he said matter-of-factly: "I know it's you!"
"I think so too," Wei Wuyin nodded. He realized that it wasn't that he couldn't infuse the aura of eternity into the process or materials, but his Alchemic Akashic Mystic Force's quality was lacking!
"Your Mystic Force isn't capable of allowing the aura of eternity to adhere to the materials or retain its properties during the conception process. While it seemed as if the aura of eternity remains abundant throughout the process, the resulting product lacks any sign of eternity. However, I can't determine where it has gone. Can you?" The Second Mind analyzed and asked.
Wei Wuyin was relying on the Celestial Eyes of Spiritual Divinity to bypass the impure-creating and failure-inducing process of using one's Spiritual Strength to concoct products. He relied on this very early on to gain a great advantage in his Concoction, avoiding the common failures of alchemists. However, he was unable to locate the lost aura of eternity after the final step was taken.
It was as if it had vanished.
So he shook his head and sighed, "I can't." Given the powers of his completed Celestial Eyes of Spiritual Divinity, this was incredible. Moreover, he couldn't sense it with his Spiritual Sense either.
"As I thought, the aura of eternity has normalized. Your Mystic Force simply can't retain its properties. Do you recall how you created your first transcendent-quality product?" Wei Wuyin's Second Mind asked.
Wei Wuyin could remember easily; it was by accident. The World-Light Refraction Elixir had, by a miracle, absorbed the invisible properties of Mysticism, and this happened a few times throughout the Everlore Starfield's history due to its location and the faint amounts of Mystic Essences within the air. Back then, even with his Celestial Eyes, he couldn't see the essence of Mysticism.
"Are you saying that the aura of eternity that's been refined through the concoction process loses its connection with me, so I can no longer sense it?" The moment he verbally said that theory, he began to see the logic in it as his eyes brightened.
The Second Mind nodded solemnly. The aura of eternity extracted would eventually lose its connection to him. After all, he was like a non-cultivating human pouring water into a pot. He can't control the water. A better example would be blood, and while within his body, he had some natural control over it, such as being able to slow or raise his heart rate and thereby increase the flow, but once spilled out into the world, he had zero control of it after losing contact with it.
"I see..."
Well, Wei Wuyin couldn't sense the origins of the aura of eternity in the same way he, as a mortal, couldn't sense the aura of mysticism! That only changed after he became a Starlord! The peak of the Mortal Dao!
"Must I reach the peak of the Resonant Soul Realm or find an Immortal-Grade material to refine then?" The thought caused him to pale slightly. They didn't have a Mystic-Soul material, let alone an Immortal-graded material! Even the Second Mind shuddered. They were both reluctant, but the facts remained. Was a transcendent-quality Mystic-Rank product out of the reality of possibility? Seems so...
"Absolutely not!" King spoke out with words that were as valuable as gold.
"..." Wei Wuyin.
"..." The Second Mind.
They both focused on King. Even Eden, Kratos, Ori, Element, and Little Defiant went silent as they focused on King.
King paused for a long while, but then it spoke with a conviction that could end immortals, "You are no longer just a mortal! Or just an Ascended being! You are...a Paragon! A conqueror of four floors of Hell! A human who dared to offend the River of Time! A soul that dared to bravely stare at heaven's secrets! You dared to scheme against the Heavenly Daos' Blessed and an entire galaxy!
"YOU ARE A PARAGON! Act like one."
"..." Everyone.